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Music Blog Posts - Page 7 of 52 - The Open College of the Arts

To find out more details about the transfer to The Open University see A New Chapter for OCA.

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OCA Music webchat: Technology, techniques and instruments thumb

OCA Music webchat: Technology, techniques and instruments

Join OCA Music tutors Carla Rees, Chris Lawry and fellow music students for an informal web chat from the comfort of your own home. The chat will start at 6.00pm on Sunday 18 August 2019 and continue ‘live’ for at least an hour and a half. The chat will also remain open after that time for follow up conversations, or for those unable to be online at that time to catch up and read. 

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Spellspheres: Part 1 thumb

Spellspheres: Part 1

I thought I would use this blog as an introduction to Spellspheres; a large series of small works I started writing in early 2019. In future blog posts, I will discuss specific works in detail, but for now I am going to discuss the overall series and what I am hoping to achieve. 

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Ask the librarian thumb

Ask the librarian

What is plagiarism? Plagiarism means deliberately or accidentally using someone else’s work or ideas as if they were your own. Work means any intellectual output, and typically includes text, data, images, sound or performance and includes material downloaded from electronic sources. Deliberately plagiarising work whilst you are at OCA can have very serious consequences, which is why it’s important to follow good academic practices and to reference your work properly.

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Breaking into the boys’ club thumb

Breaking into the boys’ club

For centuries, women have fought against adversity to pursue artistic careers in what was (and arguably still is) a man’s world.  They have suffered the humiliation of having their works passed off under someone else’s name, of being barred access to training, of struggling to do what men have taken for granted (simply represent themselves on canvas or celluloid) and of having their pieces relegated to dark corners of museum and gallery storerooms.  

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OCA & SANE: A new partnership thumb

OCA & SANE: A new partnership

We are very pleased to announce that we are working in partnership with the leading mental health charity SANE to support mental health. We are working together to deliver SANE’s new Creative Awards Scheme, a new initiative to enable people suffering from mental health or caring for people with mental health issues to access the visual arts and harness their creativity. 

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Art in the Anthropocene thumb

Art in the Anthropocene

The word Anthropocene combines the root “anthropo”, meaning “human” with the root “-cene”, the standard suffix for “epoch” in geologic time. Whilst the term is widely used across many discourses it is important to recognise that the term has spread with great speed often dislodging familiar terms like nature and environment. The notion of the Anthropocene raises important questions that concern the sustainability of the planet to support human life.

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Lisbon’s vibrant and optimistic art scene. thumb

Lisbon’s vibrant and optimistic art scene.

If you are heading to Portugal this summer, take some time to look around Lisbon’s vibrant art scene. This is art in the more liberal sense. Music, ceramics, architecture, visual arts, food culture, moving image, textiles- all are on show and in current conversation.

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Study event review: Remake / Remodel thumb

Study event review: Remake / Remodel

It was great to see such liberated and stimulating interplay between students and the work they were making. Unfamiliar drawing methods were explored including drawing with lengths of cane, using coloured tapes to collage with and stitching with a domestic sewing machine to create a variety of textured marks and lines. As the session progressed spontaneous collaborations began to develop between students where one would work over another’s drawing or drawings were developed together to produce an innovative dialogue of marks.

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OCA Music: Flute recordings thumb

OCA Music: Flute recordings

As part of a developing collaboration with UCA’s music department, I visited the new recording studios at the Farnham campus on 27 March. I recorded some flute music by UCA composers as part of a film music project, and, in return, was given the opportunity to use the studio facilities to record solo flute works by OCA composers. Four students responded to the call for pieces.

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